The local MicroCenter had the EVGA RTX 2060 in stock on launch day. I personally prefer the Founders Edition card but they’re no where to be found locally. Also to note is that all AIB RTX 2060 cards so far do not have the USB-C/VirtualLink port. I looked into Device Manager and HWiNFO64 and the USB-C controller was there but EVGA didn’t connect a physical port to it.

There’s no Nvidia web drivers in macOS Mojave so Boot Camp is the only way to go. In Windows 10, there are a couple of options to get the RTX 2060 eGPU going. The simple method is to hot-plug the eGPU then install Nvidia drivers. Once this step is done, shut the system down and switch the monitor connection from the Mac mini to the eGPU. You won’t have boot screen because the RTX 2060 eGPU disables the iGPU during boot. I wanted to keep the iGPU activated so I’m using rEFInd as well as disablement of a couple PCIe components. These are the basic steps I took to get this setup going:

Boot into Recovery mode to disable SIP through Terminal. Open Startup Security Utility to set Secure Boot to No Security and External Boot to Allow booting from external media [in Option Boot]

A new feature in Nvidia driver version 417.71 is G-Sync Compatible for FreeSync monitors. I connected an LG 27″ 4K FreeSync monitor to run benchmarks at FHD, QHD, and UHD. After checking through these settings in Nvidia Control Panel, the RTX 2060 eGPU was able to support FreeSync in this monitor without issues.

Benchmarks:

I ran the RTX 2060 first through loopback mode by connecting the ASUS USB-C portable monitor through one of the USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports in the back of the Mac mini. I installed all games on an external USB 3.0 SSD connected to the Mac mini‘s USB port. I also installed the new Port Royal raytracing benchmark.

Damn you’re fast 🙂 just bought yesterday Fe and got shipping confirmation, like Fe build for my collection and since my rtx now on Evga because suddenly died 😥 I think it’s nice to have spare;)
Btw that FPS on Port Royal almost half desktop result I believe, 7fps lol! Unfortunately Port Royal doesn’t show cpu performance, so we don’t know how it’s affected by different cpu.
Maybe you should test with better cpu, i3 bottleneck it worse I believe, with 7500U Ray Tracing is unusable laggy unlike with 8750H.

@joi_kansai I agree the FE has much nicer build quality. It was painful watching Port Royal ran on this setup. The Mac mini was heating up badly too. It may not be the CPU but rather its cooling system. I will pair this RTX 2060 to 2018 13″ MacBook Pro and we’ll see how it does in Port Royal.

@joi_kansai I agree the FE has much nicer build quality. It was painful watching Port Royal ran on this setup. The Mac mini was heating up badly too. It may not be the CPU but rather its cooling system. I will pair this RTX 2060 to 2018 13" MacBook Pro and we'll see how it does in Port Royal.

From 3D Mark physical score I thought similar about temperature and wanted also saying that, but kind seam since before I mentioned same thing to iMac and MacBook Pro results 😉 But good to know it probably cpu demanding, I saw recently here user mentioned on 2080ti setting Port Royal use high gpu, I think it was on dell xps 13, he got around 6000ish Port Royal, so i was expecting around 2000 with similar quad core CPU like MBP 13 2018, Desktop forgot the cpu I think standard 8700K was 3000 ish with 2060.
Yes it’ll be great testing on at least quad core.

@Eightarmedpet, on some games it beats even Vega 64 when I’m not wrong, I’ll check the review link later if you’re interested I’m on go now. Best rtx card on price per performance and performance upgrade compared to last gen similar serial card. Damn before 2070, now 2060, maybe later it’ll be 2050 that has best performance for the bucks

Updated: I found out Port Royal doesn’t run at full performance at first. I needed to run somethings else such as Fire Strike. Once this was done, the performance in Port Royal doubled. The OP is now updated.

I also re-ran Port Royal on my X99 Designare test bench. It behaved the same way. I needed to “warm up” the RTX 2060 eGPU prior to running Port Royal so that it doesn’t produce low performance. Here’s the score with X99 Designare i7-5820K + RTX 2060.